flour

The word “flour” means a fine powder made by grinding grain, especially wheat, used mainly for baking. In plain terms, the powder you get from grinding grain, used to make bread, cakes, and pastry.

“Flour” is pronounced FLOW-uh (/ˈflaʊ.ɚ/ in IPA).

Here is “flour” used in a sentence: “She sifted the flour before adding it to the mixing bowl.”

Depending on how it is used, “flour” can be a noun and a verb.

The word “flour” dates back to around 1800. Originally just a spelling variant of "flower" — flour was seen as the "flower," or finest part, of ground grain. The two words split apart in spelling around the early 1800s.

“Flour” is a fairly common word in modern English, usually learned at around the A2 level.

“Flour” has 2 distinct senses listed in this dictionary. The most common is: a fine powder made by grinding grain, especially wheat, used mainly for baking.

They sound identical but mean different things: flour is the fine powder made by grinding grain, used mainly in baking, while a flower is the blossom of a plant. They sound the same because flour began as a specialised use of flower meaning the finest part of the ground grain.

Yes — they are the same product under different names. "Plain flour" is the British term and "all-purpose flour" the American term for general wheat flour with no raising agents added, so recipes from the UK and US use the two names interchangeably.

Self-raising flour is plain flour with a raising agent (baking powder) already mixed in; American "self-rising" versions typically include a little salt as well. It saves adding raising agents separately in bakes such as scones and sponge cakes, but it should not replace plain flour where no rise is wanted.